Feedback from the Developers?

Earlier today someone linked me to a Lord of the Rings Online developer blog. It got me thinking about how ArenaNet communicates with the community, outside of the usual channels.

There's the wiki, but that feels like an archaic and cack-handed approach in comparison to the alternatives used by other studios. I'm quite fammilar with wiki pages and how they work, yet ArenaNet's implementation doesn't make a great deal of sense to me. It would seem far more user friendly to utilize a blog format, regular dev chats, or have developers simply posting on the forums. Wiki pages simply aren't designed to be good for communication; they are designed to be collaborative encyclopedias.

Perhaps I haven't spent enough time with the wiki to understand it's benefits, but that alone seems like an issue: If the benefits arent' immediately transparent to an average user what is going to prompt them to use it?

I'm interested in hearing what the other members here have to say in favor or against the use of a wiki format, and views alternative solutions.

I like the wiki, JR - although I often wonder if ANet still thinks that giving it to the fans to run was such a good idea. I always chuckle when I see something like "I'm sorry, Regina, but your signature image is inadmissable due to copyright limitations."

Regina and Linsey (and others) do have "what we are doing" quasi-blogs in place, yet I suspect that the dev team don't have as much time to dedicate to wiki activities as they would like.

I think there are two issues raised here, how (and where) to handle player/developer interaction and a centralized information area.

A blog would be a good place to centralize all of the various news items related to guild wars from the developers. Such as the journals posted by Regina & Lindsey which are scattered among the thousands of wiki pages and hard to keep track of, which aren't suited for gw.com but would work on a blog.

Other examples of what they should be doing, look at BioWare and Bethesdas efforts.

I think the wiki is good for what its designed for, to present information in an encyclopedic format, in the case of guild wars to document the game.

Its not meant to be a discussion medium, and doesn't have the features to support it like a proper forum.

I agree the communication between ANet and the playerbase should be handled elsewhere, i think an official forum would be best for that.

Maybe if you stuck this on the front page in bright farking red text. An easy to use response form and highlighted staff responses would be nice also, rather then having to wade through a megabyte of identical text (read: shit).

Whoever thought Wiki should be the contact portal should be drawn and quartered for promoting it. Stupidity of the highest level.

The wiki's design is a deliberate obstacle; the obvious rationale is that only more smarter and more informed people would find and use the talk pages. Reality check: there are plenty of smart and informed people that just don't care to use such a ridiculously obtuse system, and the users that have discovered and post on talk pages can be just as dumb and uninformed as most people.

Nevermind that every question has already been asked but you ARCHIVE THE FARKING THINGS SO DEEP THAT NO ONE KNOWS IT'S BEEN ASKED UNLESS THEY READ THE WIKI EVERY DAY.

Jesus Christ, I'd rather draw a goddamn Rembrandt with pink crayon shards than use the Wiki.

ArenaNet on Twitter!

I don't know but a quick update on the question: what are you doing? would be very nice. I think the Wiki isn't the best solution to communicate, and not many players know the pages where communication happens.

By the way, DevUpdates are too rare, I think they should publish DevUpdates not only after a game update, but on a regular basis, with even updates on their work on Guild Wars 2.

I've suggested decent bug fixes that would help many people there, quite a few during the off times sometime back when it didn't seem like anet had a whole lot to do. Within a week my actual constructive posts alerting anet of bugs with the game, got pushed into an archive by a huge a flood of "PLZ MAKE X ITEM EASIER TO GET" "PLZ ADD NEW TITLE" "DYE STORAGE PLZ"

Actually, I think the wiki is adding some kind of feedback forum so that we can hear back from developers. It's not done yet, but here are some links.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Feedback:Main

Discussion about the process.

Tbh, I think it'll probably be a huge failure, considering that our surprisingly understaffed Live Team (if you can call 1 person a team), doesn't have time to even answer their Wiki talk page. Seriously, Linsey's is backed up to May because she hasn't answered in THAT long.

The feedback page will be nice for wiki users, such as myself, to bitch on.....but I highly doubt that the devs will take the time to look at it. Ignoring us has become a full time job for most of them.

I think Regina'd reach more people by opening a window by her cubicle and screaming at the street.

I don't even know why they have a CR person if they won't relate with customers. Everyone knows they're a secretive bunch, so why not can her and hire another dev? It's not like we'll get any less info, and they can get their new game out a little quicker.

They have more than one CR, and this thread is about feedback from the Devs not the CR/PR Teams. We all know that they haven't done a great job lately, but there are other threads to bitch about that.

I love the wiki--its ideal for what it is, which is not communications between the devs and players. That should be handled through the official site imo--not a full fledged forum, more of a blog set up would be ideal.

My thoughts and feelings also regarding the wiki page, it's dreadful trying to sift through small text. Layout makes my eye balls red. Trying to find important related context among the users and the developers on there is pitiful.
I just don't like it! and it's why I've only visited the thing like 3 times...

I second that opinion, there is a GW2 page on Twitter but it isn't used. I contacted Regina with pretty much the same suggestions and was told that they are aware of the options but have there own plan on how to release information

Orion's blog is fantastic, and I RSS'd it from day 1. But, like ANet dev's journals it is unofficial. The wiki does feel a tad archaic, but also kind of cool. Most devs are fairly responsive. I think this discussion is a little iffy because bringing in dev "posts" on the wiki and crossing it with "official" dev updates muddies the water too much IMHO.

A wiki is a bad way to handle two-way communication! That's plain, simple, and I think that most people (including Anet staff) would agree.

A discussion forum is perfect, however. And a blog is excellent at communicating one way, and gathering feedback (though comments) the other way.

The missing element, however, which renders this poll useless is that Anet doesn't want two-way communication. They just want to post information. And a web site, like a wiki, is ideal for that purpose!

The desire for two-way communication is from the player base. They want to contribute, respond, interject, and argue. Anet staff doesn't have time for that! No matter how much the player base wants to change that, it's just isn't going to happen anytime soon.

I have worked in a corporate environment, and tried "forcing" people to use a blog. (Engineers in my case. Technical types. Somewhat like developers in many ways...) If they don't want to use it because of fear, anxiety, trepidation, or because they just don't have enough to say, it is doomed to failure. And due to the nature of the potential reader pool, and their hyper-criticality of everything, I don't blame them one bit for not wanting to stick their heads in that blast furnace!

The only possible way I can see Anet creating a blog in the future is to tie it to the release of GW2. Upon release of the game, they will have plenty to say, which removes one barrier. And it can be tied to the marketing effort and the general success of the launch, which justifies the cost and resources. And there will be much less venom and bile from the player base, reducing another barrier. So I could see it happening... But I don't expect it. The cost/benefit ratio is just too high...

They have a Facebook page and Twitter... though both mediums are essentially for bottom feeders... but whatever.

They need a developer updates page on their website... or gasp... their own forums!

I don't like the wiki, but this is BS. They've put a lot of efforts in setting up a "feedback" and "bugs" structure, however imperfect it's there.

You can still dislike the wiki, and in particular point at its major flaws regarding communication (which could be an advantage if you actually want to limit the amount of communication that you get...), while still appreciating the work done by a lot of volunteers and the existing interactions (see Joe Kimmes' talkpage for example).

They should set up a blog that lists all the recent twitter entries which point at the facebook posts which describe the wiki updates, and then put an RSS of it on the website, which could have its own facebook-twitter-wiki panel on one side for easy editing by users. And if technically possible, have it accessible from the game, with facebook-twitter-wiki crossposting.

Or just buy an online communication strategy!

Is this before or after Izzy comes back and Smiter's Boons all the skills, the sun goes supernova (if you actually try to prove the sun can't go supernova, I keel j00), whales grow legs and start eating people, ANET puts out a content update that people actually care about, and then Izzy actually balances the game?

Pretty sure the crossscripting would asplode the servers... but that sounds like something ANET would do!

I'm often a busy person, and simply don't have time to go hunting down obscure information which may or may not exist. If the developers and/or CR/PR people can't bother posting all their stuff in ONE central, easy-to-get-to place, I can't be bothered caring what they have to say.

Yes, I know no one cares about my opinion, but it's easier to type drivel on a forum than to get up and be a productive member of society at the moment.

See what I did here? I quoted an earlier post, because I want to respond to it. Doing this on the wiki is cumbersome at best. The wiki's not user friendly -- I've seen tons of people post on the wiki and not know how to indent. Posting should not require help text.

To address the quoted post... I can't agree more. The wiki is an abysmal form of contact. Order of responses based on where the person types, no automatic time stamps, no way to find out what's new on a page without sorting through history diffs... horrible.

The wiki is a great place for information. But for actual discussion, a forum format is much more clear and simple.

I voted wiki is a poor solution which it is imo. However there's another problem, Anet wants the devs to post in their free time and not during working hours. Regina or Linsey explained that in the past, can't remember who exactly.

So we have devs working late and in weekends etc. on for example 'the April update' and they have to post after working hours. Anet is on its way to create some burned out devs if management doesn't do something.

Wikis are not discussion forums. They're virtual encyclopedias.

Very poor solution.

wats wiki?!/111/?

no srsly not going to read talk pages :|

I think the wiki is a bad idea, mostly because I don't think most of the various people who play the game or visit the forums even go to the official wiki. Why they won't invest in an offical forum is beyond me.


Well if you either had an infinite source of hydrogen as well as some method of removing excess mass from the sun, or a way to extract helium, fisse it down to hydrogen, and reinject it back into the sun, then you are home free.

You know what, all we need to do is to mount a weak nuclear force laser on a space station near the sun and then shoot the sun with the laser and split all the atoms down into hydrogen.

Pfft. {{quote|text}}, replacing "text" with the copypasta'd quote. Simple.

actually Snoggy, its not so easy for those of us that don't "Get" html... I can't remember them and its taken me nearly five years to learn simple BBCode for the forums

Why bother with a wiki, when there's a perfectly good forum right here that serves the purpose much better?

Using the Wiki as a discussion board is like using Flash to make GW2. It will do the job, just very poorly.

I think what they need to do is set up a blog (which was something I remember Regina talking about) or set up their own forums. I would love to get involved on the discussions there but the idea of trying to wade through that... mess... is a bit galling when I have other things to do.

A dev-blog would be good. A whole forum is overkill imho.

Come on, Snog, how can you argue that this style of communication is great? I use different wiki languages, but they're for formatting information for content-based documents. It's not appropriate at all for discussions. Just imagine the kinds of discussions we're having here, we would already be with about 7 to 15 levels of indentation, without the ability to get a poll and lost in a see of messages posted by nicknames which you click to get to their talkpage.

Wiki is the best thing to happen to CMSs, I use one as my personal, portable agenda-brainstorming and own about 6 others to work with colleagues. My first research project taught me how good this is for generating content. And how terrible it is for interpersonal communications.

As I said many times, I can imagine (stress on imagine, it's hypothetical) that such inappropriateness for comm limits the amount of comm, and thus make it more "manageable" to Anet. Guru shows how difficult managing the level of comm that such a community require is, but Anet should have built on top of Guru rather than bypass it. Can't dev and designers (Linsey did it recently on the Nicholas thread while we were desperately looking for him this Monday ), or members of the QA and art teams, communicate here?

More generally, as someone quite versed in online comm, I don't understand the strategy of posting some stuff on the websiteS (www.guildwars.com and eu.guildwars.com are different), tiny bits of info on FB then on twitter, a few pics on Flickr, share a few discussions on wiki, add a post on fansites here and there (much appreciated though!). It seems the fragmentation of this comm is part of the reason why it's seen as "bad", not only because a wiki is inappropriate for comm.

On the other hand, I loved the Ascension show where Regina, Martin and Linsey contributed after the 4th anniversary, it was fun and efficient at comm, in particular for Linsey. They should do more of that.

Thanks Fril

this is why I restarted the monthly show and got all the tools needed to have them on air for it so they could have a place to come and answer things to the community and have some fun at the same time

one thing you point out in your post and I agree with 100% is a lack of centralization on information and having a few websites, two wiki's (one official, the other not) and only posting info on one forum rather han the few is a bad plan

HOWEVER, using the wiki as the information resource (which is what a wiki is for afterall) and then using the website to link to this is a great idea and just needs to be rooted down and all tied together and get rid of the loose threads and crap

then let the forums pick it apart at will and take the fansite forums (all of them, not just specifics) as a source of feedback and look at it all

This is exactly what I was going to say. I'd rather just have one place where they can post up the stuff they're doing and not have to bother trying to keep up with threads and other nonsense. Hell, I wouldn't blame them for not even allowing comments.

Is there a transcript of that? I can't get Ascension at work.

Unlucky Slayer has the IRC transcripts and Spacefreak recorded the shows, we're n the process of still updating the station website and will soon be adding an events page so I can upload them